To identify a bearing, it’s assigned a standardized code referred to as a designation. The designation is made up of one to three parts;

Prefixes and suffixes, which provide additional information to the designation, are not always included.

The meaning of the numbers and letters that can be included in a designation is listed in the section Code tables below.

Basic designation

A basic designation contains 3-5 digits that always represent these three pieces of information:

Note: the Bearing type and Bearing series put together is called Bearing series.

Let’s take the following three designations as examples

626

The first digit always tells us the Bearing type (6 = Single row deep ball groove bearing.)
The second digit (2) tells us the Dimension series (2 = Light).
In a three digit designation, the third digit (6) tells us the Bore size in mm. So in this case, the Bore diameter is 6 mm.

6305

Again, the first digit tells us the Bearing Type (6 = Single row deep ball groove bearing.)
The second digit (3) tells us the Bearing series (3 = Medium.)
The third and fourth digit (05) tells us the Bore size (05 = 25 mm.)

62103

First digit for Bearing type as always.
The second and third digit tells us the Dimension series where
- the second digit (2) is the width code and
- the third digit (1) is the diameter series
The fourth and fifth digits (03) tells us the bearing Bore size (03 = 17 mm.)

Prefixes and suffixes

A bearing code can also be made longer to include additional information such as;

A

Here are some examples what bearing designations can look like. (What the codes mean is shown under section Code tables below. 6305ZZ